Monday

Homeschool Mom's Boot Camp Day One: Get Your Priorities Straight!



When you are a stay at home mom, especially a stay at home homeschool mom, everyone assumes you have it all together, including great, strong relationships with your children and your husband. I mean how could you not have wonderful relationships, you are around each other all day long!

Unfortunately relationships take work, even for home school mothers. It’s all too easy to spend your day as teacher and forget to be “just mom” too. And when dad comes home, you’re tired, exhausted, and drained. Keeping a marriage relationship gets pushed farther and farther on the back burner. I was recently reminded of all these things a few weeks ago and had started working on a plan to become more intentional in my relationships, not just with my family, but with God, taking care of myself, our home, and my outside commitments, when Pam came along with her Homeschool Mom's Boot Camp idea. It was perfect timing to get everything together and a plan in place to be more productive and more intentional.

I was reminded of a system I’d used before from a book called Creative Counterpart by Linda Dillow. While I don’t agree with everything in the book, I do love her idea for intentionally planning to strengthen your priorities.

Yours are probably different, but here are my priorities:

1) God: This is not about church attendance or teaching Bible class, but about your personal relationship with God, private time studying, praying, and meditating. That’s right, the area where you can totally slack off and nobody knows.

2) Husband: Keeping a strong relationship with Preacher Man is a must. We will be together long after the Tree Dwellers are out of the tree house! If we don’t stay connected now, there might not be a connection later.

3) Children: I feel like I am interacting with my children all day. And I am, teaching them, but I don’t spend nearly as much time as I should just enjoying them. I want them to have wonderful memories of their time with me, not just wonderful memories of what they did in our home school.

4) Home: I can’t be the only person who has a list of those household projects that you never get around to finishing because you are busy with life. I’m happy if the minimum gets done around here, let alone cleaning out closets, sorting clothes, or culling the toy herd. This priority is for those projects.

5) Me: “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!” When we are focused on giving to others day in and day out, even others that you love like your family, it is very, very easy to let taking care of ourselves become priority number 1,001. As Preacher Man tells me repeatedly, “You are in a much better mood when you get your morning exercise.” As hard as it is, taking care of yourself has to be a priority.

6) Extra: These are my other responsibilities, such as my blog and the online Christian blog I write for, Come Fill Your Cup. I need deadlines, even of my own making!

My boot camp for the next two or three weeks (I haven’t decided yet!) is to keep my priorities in the right order (for example, Extras can’t take precedence over the Kids) and be intentional with my time.

I will be explaining more about how all this works, my specific goals, and I will even share a printable with all of you to help you prioritize and intentionalize (this should be a word!) your life as well.

So Day One of Boot Camp is in the books at The Planted Trees. See that wasn’t so painful? But today was to get you to start thinking and start planning because later this week is when we are putting all of this into action!

Please link up with Pam at Everday Snapshots to join the Homeschool Mom's Boot Camp and use these weeks as a time to conquer an area in your home school or home that needs some long overdue attention. Also don’t forget to check out Kristen’s art focused Boot Camp and Pam’s time focused Boot Camp either.

Day Two is here.

Feeling motivated and excited in the tree house,

Chelli

8 comments:

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    1. Awesome! Maybe we can get this priority thing down together! :)

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  2. >>.... but I don’t spend nearly as much time as I should just enjoying them. I want them to have wonderful memories of their time with me, not just wonderful memories of what they did in our home school.<<<

    I SO feel you on this. I know exactly what you mean. I've been trying to work on this. In fact, your post just served as a gentle nudge. My girls are watching SchoolHouse Rock (electoral college) and I should be watching it with them instead of sitting in front of my computer. I'm signing off now. :)

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    1. Okay...now you're just stepping on my toes! LOL! Seriously, though, that's why I chose this as my area to work on.

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  3. You are such an inspiration!! Love you Chelli! Cannot wait to read more of what you have to share!

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    1. I'm not sure you need any of my knowledge in this area, Laura. If anything I should let you guest write all of these boot camp posts! Thanks for the love and the support, though. :)

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  4. Love this idea! As I just commented on everydaysnapshots, this is coinciding with my reading of "21 Days to a More Disciplined Life" so I think I'm going to use you all for my accountability partners! My goal: to get my MOTH schedule updated. I'll try to post tomorrow evening. How fun! :)

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    1. Accountability is good! Can't wait to see what you post!

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